


Into That Good Night

by MaxWrite



Category: Terminal (2018)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Misandry, Pedophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 14:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15075494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaxWrite/pseuds/MaxWrite
Summary: Was killing him really worth it? After all, he was already dying.





	Into That Good Night

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've seen _Terminal_. Twice, actually. And, umm … I have questions.
> 
> None of which are examined here, really. This is just Annie's inner dialogue while she's waiting for Bill to locate a clue. Can't remember where or even if I saw this somewhere, but I seem to remember an interview with either Margot or maybe the director, in which someone said that there was a point at which Annie, after talking to Bill for a while, is questioning whether she really wants to kill him. Maybe? Did I make that up? Anyway, Bill's involvement here goes only as far as Annie's contemplation of him; he doesn't say or do much here.
> 
> This is the first thing I've written in a long time that's come relatively easily. I've been really blocked for a long time now and keep trying to go back to the things that once comforted and distracted me but they don't work so good no more, so here we are. I wouldn't say that this is a total departure from places I've gone before. While there's nothing graphic here, I do enjoy skirting that line between okay and really not okay. I like inner conflict and gray areas and things being messy and unclear, even for a moment. I think this is more of that.
> 
> Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie, well, what are you doing here? But more than that, heed the above warnings, please. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use the archive warnings if the piece only references certain things and doesn't actually depict them. I'm just being cautious.

Annie wasn't sure she wanted to kill him.

Rather inconvenient time to be having such thoughts, seeing as Bonnie was expecting her to report back with the good news of his untimely demise. But he was already dying. He was already being punished for his sins. He didn't have much longer to live. Was he really worth getting her hands dirty? Like washing a car just before it rains. Hardly any satisfaction in it.

She wished that that was all there was to it; nothing more than a debate about effort versus reward. But she was, and always had been, conflicted about him, more so than Bonnie. Annie hated him, all right. But you could pity something that you hated.

Bonnie had always been the troublemaker; Annie had always been the timid one. The countless times Annie had been blamed for something her sister had done; Bonnie had always defended her but that would only result in both of them getting in trouble.

It was Mr. B. who'd been able to tell them apart when no one else could. Even in the dark. Even through his alcohol haze he knew one from the other, even when they switched beds or snuggled up in the same one for comfort. He'd favoured each of them for different reasons; Bonnie for the sheer satisfaction of punishment and humiliation; Annie for … something else. Something quieter, gentler. It was even more unsettling than pure punishment. His hatred was something they were comfortable with, something they at least understood. Whatever it was that Annie felt in him whenever he'd … she didn't like it. She didn't like any part of anything he ever did, but this in particular unsettled her the most. It had made him seem more than just a monstrous, evil man. It had made him seem human, and that complicated things to a rather annoying degree.

Bonnie. She'd known that Annie had a soft spot for him ("soft spot" was a strong term but that was what Bonnie called it; confusion was more accurate). Tonight was a test. Bonnie was the one who'd insisted on tracking him down. She wanted him dead more than anyone else on their list, even their father. But she'd tasked Annie with his murder instead of taking that privilege for herself. Finally she had a way to see where Annie's loyalties lie. As if there was really a question. It wasn't a matter of loyalty, but Bonnie couldn't see that.

Annie didn't want to disappoint her sister, but as she watched Mr. B. from behind the counter, taking drags off his cigarette as if the smoke might give him back his stolen health, killing him was beginning to seem a bit extreme. He was suicidal anyway. Maybe she could convince him to finally do it himself.

But was that still too extreme? He barely looked like the same person she remembered; the tyrant who never smiled or laughed, who seemed to take pleasure in the crack of a ruler on a small hand or backside or even an arm or a back; who would glare if you made a peep, even an accidental scrape of a chair against the floor; whose rage-filled outbursts couldn't be predicted, could be triggered by a dropped pencil or a wrong answer or even silence.

Back then, even his own silences had been loud. You felt his presence at your back as he patrolled the classroom, looking over shoulders, hoping to find something to pick at. If he ever stepped out of the room for a second, you still felt him there, the threat of him. He filled any room with dread that made you feel every heartbeat in your entire body, a steady _whomp, whomp, whomp_ in the ears. He was like fog scattering light the from streetlamps, turning it ghostly and eerie, almost amplifying it but not in a reassuring way. And the second he returned he'd know about any wrongdoing that had occurred in his absence. His mind had been too sharp, as if he carried around mental photographs of his classroom that were accurate down to the chalk smudges on the blackboard. Any change would be detected. Him stepping out should have been a small respite from his tyranny; instead you barely breathed when he was gone.

And when he'd skulk into the room in the night, he brought that same fog with him. It preceded him as he approached, his footsteps nearly in perfect sync with the throbbing heartbeat that would fill your skull. She remembered the prickle on her skin, the goosebumps and raised arm hairs as she'd realize that he was near. She'd felt it again when he'd walked into the diner tonight.

But that hadn't lasted long. It had become clear pretty quickly that this was not the same person she remembered. His anger still bubbled somewhere inside him, but it was quieter now. The inherent threat that he used to exude from his very pores, the persistent sense of danger, was all gone now. He was smaller than she remembered. He'd seemed like a genuine giant monster back then, looming over her in the dark, filling her senses with the terrifying weight of his presence and the scent of alcohol and tobacco.

Nothing about him loomed anymore, which ironically made him more dangerous. Before, back then, at least you knew what was coming. Now it was like he was hiding. In plain sight. He looked _normal_. There was nothing in his lined face or tired eyes that suggested what he was. His narrow frame was hardly threatening, all wrapped up snug in his coat. His slender fingers looked frail as twigs delicately holding his cigarette and raising his glass to his lips. How much suffering had those hands brought her and her sister? They used to weigh a ton a piece. Now she was sure she could snap them off at the wrists with barely a flick of her own. Killing him wouldn't be revenge; it would be mercy.

And the way he spoke, the way he chatted with her and laughed sardonically and quipped to hide his pain. Despite him having been a competent enough English teacher, she remembered him as an inarticulate tyrant, nothing more than a vessel for anger. She didn't remember him yelling full sentences, although she knew he must have. She remembered the sound, the volume, the intensity, the harshness of his voice with the occasional word here and there. Obey. Listen. Never. Silly.

_Naughty._

But she was an adult now, and this version of him spoke to her accordingly. When he wasn't being pompous, that is. Her brain was having trouble reconciling this version with the old one. She couldn't see her abuser in him.

Not yet. Night was still young. There was still plenty of time to coax the monster out of him. She just needed some time. Just to be sure. _Had_ to be sure.

She'd asked her sister once, "Why do you think he hates us so much?"

They'd been just little girls then. Bonnie hadn't been able to produce a response until much, much later – barely a few months ago, actually – while they'd been holed up in a motel, plotting and planning.

Sat with her back to an old wooden desk stained with water rings, Bonnie had taken a drag off her cigarette, blown out the smoke and said out of nowhere, "Because he was a slave to us."

Annie hadn't the faintest idea what Bonnie had been talking about at first. She'd looked up from the newspaper she'd been examining on one of the single beds and asked, "What?"

"Mr. B. He found us insufferable and irresistible all at once. He hated that his livelihood depended on us. He hated that most of us were probably going to turn out pretty mediocre despite all his _valiant_ efforts." Bonnie had then angrily stamped out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray, uncrossed her legs and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her thighs. "He hated our little voices," she continued in a quieter but harsher tone, piercing daggers through Annie's eyes with the sheer intensity of her resentment. "He hated our laughter, resented our youth. Because he felt trapped. He had nothing to laugh about."

She'd sat upright again, raised her chin slightly, almost triumphantly, as she said, "He hated us because he wanted us; insipid creatures, helpless, useless, pointless things that nonetheless required his time and effort. Oh, he acted as if it was all about us, like what he would do to us was simply what we deserved for being such detestable little things, but it was his own need that he hated most. It made him a slave to us, more so even than his job. He could've quit that. Could've gone off and looked for work elsewhere, in an office maybe, or a factory. But his desire?" A wicked grin pulled at her lips and her gaze became as bright and sharp as the tip of a fountain pen. "There was no escaping that. That was the one bit of control we had over him. Had we been a bit older, we might've been able to do something with it."

"Something like what?" Annie had asked.

Bonnie had shrugged and casually replied, "Manipulate him, blackmail him, torture him. Possibilities are endless, aren't they? But now? Too late for that now. We'd be too old for the sick bastard, wouldn't we?"

"I s'pose," Annie had replied uncertainly. She wasn't so sure about that, but what intrigued her more was all of the thought that Bonnie had apparently given to their former teacher's motives and feelings. "How d'you figure all that?" she asked. "About how he felt?"

"Because." Bonnie's expression grew dark. Not angry exactly, but troubled. "Sometimes he wasn't quite so rough, was he? Sometimes that look on his face wasn't quite so hateful."

Conflict. That was what that look on her face was. She was conflicted, disturbed, annoyed. She didn't want to think of Mr. Braithwaite as a human being with complex emotions, who could look upon them with something other than disgust or sick need.

"You noticed it too?" Annie had asked. "You never said."

"Why would I? What would've been the point? Would talking about it have changed anything? Would we have been doodling his name in our notebooks with little love hearts instead of wishing him dead?"

"Of course not. That's not the point. It's just … I thought it was just me."

"Oh … dear sister," Bonnie had said in that condescending tone she sometimes used when she thought Annie was a step or two behind her. "It _was_ just you. He never looked at me like that. He was never gentle with me."

Some people might've thought there was a hint of jealousy in Bonnie's voice, but honestly people were often very stupid. Especially men. Most of them would probably have taken Bonnie's tone as an indication of what women really want, as if what women did in private was fight over the attention of rapists and molesters. They'd have taken it as a green light, a confirmation of what they'd always so smugly "known", which was that women, little girls, liked it. Of _course_ they did. Why would anyone not want something that a man thought was a good idea?

Bonnie's tone was one of anger, not jealousy. Anger that she'd been unable to stop it, that Annie had been exposed to not just the man's rage, but also his perversion.

Annie got that. She felt it. It was like a slap in the face, being handled so tenderly by him during times when he was doing the most damage. It was insulting. And that was the worst part; that tenderness could be wrapped up in so much rage and ill intent, that it could come at such a high cost. Such a confusing lesson for such little girls.

But an important one nonetheless.

Bonnie had stood up suddenly, with the forcefulness of someone with a purpose, but it seemed she merely needed to move around, do something with the agitated energy now coursing through her. "He hated us because he was a hateful man," she said with the finality of someone who was done talking. "He was broken. So he wanted everyone else to be broken too."

That was what Bonnie needed to say, needed to hear aloud, in order to get back on track and cleanse the idea of Mr. B. as a regular, fairly unremarkable human being from her mind. Annie couldn't forget quite so easily. She wished she could.

Now she watched him with a frown, tapping her nails against the table top. Maybe he'd been tortured enough already. You didn't do what he did and go on to live an untroubled life.

But he had to know what he'd done. That was it, the niggling, nagging thing in the back of her mind that wouldn't allow her to just let him go, unscathed, tonight. Before he bid his final farewell, he had to face his crimes. He had to _see_ her. Perhaps he was already being punished, but that didn't mean he'd ever really faced what he'd done.

Then he looked up at her with a new, more intent type of scrutiny and asked, "Have we met before?"

She felt her eye twitch. Had they _met before_? He really had no idea. Well, very little idea at most. He knew her all right, he just couldn't see it fully yet. The lack of true recognition irked her. The mark this man had left on her and Bonnie's entire lives was ugly and rough and permanent, like jagged etchings in rock. And his arrogant little brain couldn't be arsed to pull up the memory of him destroying them over and over, like it had been nothing to him. Just another routine task in a mundane life, like fetching the paper from the front porch or taking out the trash, the sort of thing you forget you've done because it requires so little consideration while doing it.

Well, then.

There was an anxious, excited fluttering in her gut. It had begun. Every flash of deja vu, every prod at his hippocampus was just another layer in a memory being laid in its rightful place. And she would make him reconstruct that memory, in its entirety, whether he wanted to or not.

Onward, then. Into that good night.

"I dunno," she replied, adding with a cock of her head, "Have we?"

END


End file.
